Get her story straight on what she meant when she told tea party members earlier this year -- as seen in a video recently dug up by the Huffington Post -- that legislation creating Social Security should have included a "sunset provision." Her rival quickly offered up his own translation that McMahon wants to end entitlement programs, including Medicare.

"She should be well-prepared to do damage control on that front this weekend," said Elvin Lim, associate professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown and author of the political blog, Out on a Lim.

2. Be careful with the attacks.

Whether it's Murphy's 25 percent attendance rate at committee hearings or his pattern of paying bills late, McMahon has made minced meat with the research dug up by her campaign. A televised debate gives her a free medium to highlight her opponent's perceived deficiencies -- but she has to be careful how she does it.

"What Linda McMahon needs to do is attack his trustworthiness without appearing as if she's going to attack him personally," Lim said. "We know that negative ads work as long as it doesn't look as the person who's doing the attacking looks nasty."

More Information

What: Chris Murphy and Linda McMahon will participate in an hourlong debate
When and where: 11 a.m. Sunday at the Rocky Hill studios of WFSB Channel 3
Moderator: "Face the State" host Dennis House
How you can watch: The "Face the State" program is on WFSB

3. Give Murphy the business.

If Christopher Healy was advising McMahon, the former state Republican Party chairman would encourage her to juxtapose her business acumen as the co-founder of Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment, now the WWE, with Murphy's background as a creature of Washington, D.C.

"Stick to the basics, her strength, which is understanding the dynamics of a free market economy and what we need to do to get it moving again," Healy said.

4. Pay it forward.

McMahon should expect to be grilled about how she and her husband, Vince, filed for personal bankruptcy in 1976. She often speaks of the bankruptcy as part of the hard times she overcame, but has been short on details. That all changed with newspaper reports last month listing more than two dozen unpaid creditors, some of whom spoke out about how they were never paid.

McMahon's campaign scrambled to say that the multimillionaire would repay her debts, leading Democrats to question her motives.

"She should be contrite and honest and concede that she's making a good-faith effort to pay her creditors," Lim said.

5. Don't get cute.

Now is not the time for McMahon to try to play "name that leader of the Muslim Brotherhood" or give a dissertation on fracking.

"I think that when it's close enough, she shouldn't put herself out there too much because when she does, she makes mistakes," Lim said.